Advanced Placement classes failing students

[Consolation]

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They may not have enough innate intelligence, may not have worked hard, might have had a lousy teacher, or might have taken an “AP” class that was really their first high-school level exposure to the subject. (I have heard of this happening in the sciences: normal biology becomes “AP Biology,” although a student may have had little exposure to the subject.)

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I am not sure how a student who has never taken the intro course is expected to handle what is expected in the AP/II course.

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<p>My S and his classmates went directly into AP Bio and Physics with no previous courses in those subjects. They had no problem with it. They went into AP Chem after having honors chem sophomore year, because they were a transition class. Now, all of the kids in that Math/Science track can go directly to the AP sequence after taking the same rigorous Honors Introduction to Science course freshman year that S and his class took, and the math sequence is designed to accompany it. </p>

<p>I would suggest that, whatever their original intent, no one seriously thinks that an AP course is the same as a college course these days–at least not a college course at a good school. </p>

<p>So why not just consider them “advanced placement in high school” and be done with the whole argument. They serve a valuable purpose as the closest thing we have to a national curriculum.</p>